Stuffed animals take over library

SEABROOK — Children recently brought their stuffed animals to the Seabrook Library for the fourth annual Stuffed Animal Sleepover party.

Kiki Evans

SEABROOK — Children recently brought their stuffed animals to the Seabrook Library for the fourth annual Stuffed Animal Sleepover party.

A record-high number of 28 "participants" joined Children's Librarian Lisa Bricker and her own childhood companion bear, "Child," for the all-nighter that included a visit to the historic Brown Library, board games, train table time and puppet play, and even a science experiment involving soda and explosive candies.

"We had a record crowd of 'organisms," said Bricker, who has led programs and activities for children at the library since 2008. "It wasn't just animals, since we had C3PO, a zombie gorilla, and Mario and Luigi there, too."

Every year for the sleepover event, Bricker takes action photos of the sleepover guests and assembles a book for each child documenting what their stuffed companions did while they were away at the sleepover. The children receive the books when they pick their companions up the morning after the party.

Bricker asked children and their guardians to drop off the animals by 4 in the afternoon since the list of activities she planned for the guests involved lots of set-up and coordination.

"I was a little worried that Kitty wouldn't get along with everybody," she said.

Ellie Magliaro, Morgan's mother, agreed that Morgan was "a little nervous at first" when she dropped Kitty off for the sleepover.

The sleepover activities began right away. Activities vary from year to year depending on the theme of the summer reading program, and since this year's theme was, "Fizz, Boom, Read!" the sleepover guests took part in a science experiment and visited the giant robot Bricker made at the beginning of the summer.

Bricker took photos of each animal choosing a book and checking the book out, riding in a wagon to the Brown Library which is part of Seabrook Library and adjoins the main building, brushing their teeth before bedtime, going to sleep for the night, having breakfast with other stuffed friends and waiting for their human owners to pick them up.

Bricker made sure that each stuffed guest was included in the photos, and that every single guest was with the group as they moved from one thing to another. "It can be tough to keep track of each one," she said as she counted and re-counted each of the twenty-eight guests.

Taking pictures of 28 stuffies engaged in around 20 activities wasn't the hardest part of the evening, though. Once the photos were completed, the most difficult task began.

"Once I have the photos, they have to be downloaded and separated for each animal," she said. Each year, Bricker figures out the formatting and plans the books ahead of time, but admitted, "there are so many details that you have to keep track of, like changing all of the 'he's' and 'she's' for each book."

In previous years, Bricker enlisted the help of an outside office store to print the books, but sometimes there were problems that happened at the last minute which made it difficult for Bricker to deliver the books to the children when they came to pick up their stuffed companions following the sleepover the next morning. The printer confused one file, for example, and put the wrong animal in the wrong book.

"It's all timing," said Bricker. "Everything is at the last second because that's how it has to be." Bricker can't assemble the books for the children until all of the activities and photos are completed, and the books must be completed before the children come to pick up their beloved friends the next morning.

This year, Bricker worked at home to sort the photos and ready them for printing, but was able to print the books in-house at the library. After hours of sorting through all of the photos, she arrived before the library opened for the day to assemble the books in time for the children to arrive.

"I think she had fun," said Kitty's owner Morgan Magliaro. Morgan thought that the photo album she received about Kitty's big night away from home was "very special." She couldn't believe that Kitty had done so many things while she was on her own.

"I think it was really great for the kids," said Ellie Magliaro. "It makes them feel very special."

"It's so much fun," said Bricker, who first saw the idea of a stuffed animal sleepover online and thought it was a perfect event for the Children's Library. "It's a lot of stress and tension, but I wouldn't do it if I didn't think it was fun!"

"It's the great part about being a Children's Librarian," said Bricker. "I get to do all of the fun stuff."

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